


blessed forever and to all eternity

by soulbreak



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Grief/Mourning, Irish Steve Rogers, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Not A Fix-It, set when steve is in the pub after bucky dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23830501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulbreak/pseuds/soulbreak
Summary: When Steve was a small child, his mother used to tell him stories of the dead.
Relationships: (possibly one-sided), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	blessed forever and to all eternity

When Steve was a small child, his mother used to tell him stories of the dead. She’d talk about the legendary land of Tír na nÓg, the fantastical warriors who traveled there, the happiness and youth and riches they received. Later, when he was a little older (but not by much), he’d claim to have grown out of stories for little kids; even later, after she passed, he’d have given anything to hear her soothing voice again, falling asleep to the soft lilt of her tales. It was Bucky who told him that Sarah, a warrior in her own right, would surely be residing peacefully in the Otherworld now; a small comfort when faced with the realities of life, but a comfort nonetheless.

Sarah was Irish Catholic. She was also a practical woman, so Steve grew up learning about the holy trinity of modern medicine, Catholic guilt, and how to outwit the Fair Folk. Bucky was a Jew through-and-through, but they didn’t talk much about religion, except when Sarah died and Bucky’s whole family sat shiva for her. Steve still remembered Winifred’s hollow voice at the funeral service, mourning in the way she knew how:  _ yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra chirutei… _

He only half-remembered the words, blurred by the passage of the time and his poor pre-serum hearing, but he thought he’d give them a try now, sitting in the bombed-out ghost of the bar, a memory of Bucky in his head and a useless bottle in his hands.

“Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra chirutei, v’yamlich malchutei b’chayechon uvyomeichon uvchayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba’agala uvizman kariv, v’im’ru: amen…”

Bucky had asked him twice what he thought happened after dying. The first was when they were teenagers, sitting on the fire escape on a warm summer evening, the taste of pilfered beer on their tongues and Steve’s desires caught tight in his throat. He had stumbled through his answer, afraid to admit he wasn’t quite sure about the Otherworld and he wasn’t quite sure about Heaven and Hell and he wasn’t quite sure about nothingness, either, or any other place he could go. Bucky had let it go that time. The second time was shortly after Azzano. Steve had started to mumble out something, probably bullshit, when Bucky had fixed him with the piercing, deadened stare he’d picked up after Kreischberg and practically begged him to tell the truth. Upon hearing Steve’s answer, Bucky had gone real quiet and looked a little lost. They hadn’t ever talked about the moment again.

“Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam ul’almei almaya…”

Bucky was never afraid of going to Hell. Steve didn’t know much about what Jews thought of death - he’d never asked, and Bucky’d never said - but he knew they didn’t really have a Hell the way Catholics did. Bucky was never afraid of going to Hell, but he was afraid of dying - of leaving, Steve thought suddenly: he remembered, through the haze of fever, listening to Bucky beg Steve not to leave him, once when Steve had pneumonia so bad that Bucky wouldn’t let him leave their apartment for almost a week after recovering. Bucky didn’t want Steve to leave him, and now here he was, sitting in this fucking pub when his best friend’s body was left behind, abandoned.

Steve wondered if Bucky was angry at him. He didn’t quite believe in ghosts, not exactly, although he wouldn’t piss one off if it turned out they were real. But he could imagine Bucky, wherever he was now, furious with Steve for letting him down, for leaving him behind, for not reaching out those extra few inches to just grab his hand, for dragging him back into the damn war in the first place. His ma’s face flashed before his eyes, the weary look she’d get, disappointed but not surprised, whenever he got into another fight and returned home bloodied and bruised. He remembered the way she’d tsk and shake her head slowly before reaching for their always-stocked first aid kit yet again, the tenderness with which she’d wipe a wet cloth over his wounds with her slim and steady hands. Buck was less gentle with his scolding than she was, but never any less caring; his hands might have been bigger, stronger, than hers, but he was always just as tender, just as loving, as she was.

It hit Steve, then: Bucky  _ loved  _ him. Bucky loved Steve, maybe even in the way Steve loved Bucky, and he’d never said anything - neither of them had ever said anything to each other, and now it was too late. Bucky was  _ gone _ .

Bucky was gone, and Steve had never told him he loved him.

“Yitbarach v’yishtabach, v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnaseh, v’yithadar v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kud’sha, b’rich hu, l’eila min-kol-birchata v’shirata, tushb’chata v’nechemata da’amiran b’alma, v’im’ru: amen…”

They hadn’t needed words, for what they were to each other: they were always just Steve-and-Bucky, Bucky-and-Steve, until the end of the line. They hadn’t needed words, but Steve wished he could have come up with some anyway: some way to make sure Bucky  _ knew _ what he was to Steve. They’d never fucked, never even kissed, but Steve had felt Bucky deep in him, in his soul, a raw sort of sensation, a nebulous, expanding thing, like the birth of a star.

When Steve was a small child, his mother told him stories of the dead. He sat by her side as she wasted into nothing; watched, in the forests and factories of Europe, as men left this world much the way she had - more violently, but still: there one moment, gone the next. He’d laughed over breakfast with men who would be dead later that day, and when the Commandos had intercepted a transmission saying that Zola would be on a train heading into the Alps, he hadn’t hesitated to joke around with Bucky and the other Howlies, confident in their abilities to pull off the mission together. As a team.

If he’d known. Oh G-d, if he’d known.

“Y’hei shlama raba min-sh’maya v’chayim aleinu v’al-kol-yisrael, v’im’ru: amen. Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’im’ru: amen.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


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